Mike Priestley: Who's Counting?

Mrs Skeet, at 74, belongs firmly in that generation of people who have spent their entire adult life under the care of the National Health Service. They were there when it was introduced after the 1939-45 war to provide free health care to everyone, financed through taxation and National Insurance contributions.

All through their working lives this generation paid in to the system, confident in the knowledge that it would be there for them when they needed it. And they took notice of warnings to seek early treatment for any worrying symptom which could turn out to be cancer, because that would give them the best chance of being cured.

Cancer, everyone was led to believe, had a very high priority. Because delay could be dangerous, patients were fast-tracked for diagnosis and treatment.

That was the belief that most of us have grown up with over the last half century or so.

What's happened? The NHS wasn't there for Mrs Skeet when she needed it, when an operation just might have rid her of the cancer which has invaded her throat. She was left for it to progress until it was too late for anything to be done.

How many more Mavis Skeets will there be or perhaps have been already - people betrayed by the system in which they put their faith? You can't blame the doctors. Their mission is to heal. They must be distraught when they're thwarted by forces beyond their control.

What you can blame is the people who manage the health service, and the politicians who have messed around with it so much that it now groans beneath a burden of bureaucracy and barmy ideas like the "internal market".

You can blame a system which provides finance for large offices for legions of managers at various levels, and which sidetracks talented medical people from the sharp end where they are most needed to spend many hours of their working week in meetings, briefings, conferences and accountancy exercises.

This system has created a health service of several parts, each part with its own staff and funds which it protects jealously when really, in a crisis like the present one caused by the flu epidemic, it should be a single service able to move personnel to where they are most needed. The NHS, once Britain's pride, has been brought to its knees by politicians of both main parties. When William Hague castigates the present Government for the state of affairs in the hospitals, he conveniently forgets that it was the Tories who introduced the changes which have brought the service to its knees.

That is their shame. It is Labour's shame that it has done nothing to put things right and has even allowed them to become worse.

Every generation in this country should be raging at what has happened to the NHS and demanding that it be sorted out, even if it does mean putting a penny or two on taxation specifically to increase its funding.

But it's the over-50s generation which should rage the loudest. We are the ones who, by the law of averages, are most likely to need, in the not-too-distant future, the health care we believed we were investing in.

If Mavis Skeet's tragic experience is any guide, none of us can count on the NHS as it is at present keeping its side of the bargain.

I Don't Believe It!

What do you do when a trusty piece of equipment needs a spare part but it's regarded as obsolete? That's the situation in which Sid Brown finds himself. Not that he's obsolete, of course. He's kept very active writing to the Letters to the Editor page of the T&A. But I'll let him explain.

"In this brave new world where so much has disappeared, can any of your readers help me please?" he asks. "I still like to use my old typewriter but the chance of getting new ribbons seems about as remote as England's batsmen or David Beckham actually staying on their respective pitches!

"The lovely typewriter repair shop in Manor Row has closed. The Yellow Pages don't help. Can any kind T&A readers tell me where to go to get a ribbon please?"

So over to you, readers.

Personally I think it's a terrible mistake to phase out typewriter ribbons while there are still people who possess typewriters. Those trusty old machines might have been needed over the New Year if the millennium bug had bitten as predicted and computers had crashed.

I'd already dusted down the sturdy little portable in the attic at Mildew Mansions - but I must admit, I hadn't tested the ribbon. It might well be all dried up because I haven't used it for a few years. So if anyone can let me know where ribbons are available, I'd be interested too.

And now, names. You might remember that in the last century (tee-hee!) I was bemoaning the fact that women who wrote to me sometimes didn't say whether they were Mrs or Miss, making it difficult to know how to address them when I wrote back.

Sarah M Greenwood, of Heaton, has no intention of making things easier for me. She writes: "I sign my name Sarah F M Greenwood because I wish to be addressed as Sarah, which is my given, Christian name. When asked my name in the old, pre-Ms days, I gave it as 'Sarah Greenwood', and then came the inevitable question: 'Mrs?' When I said 'Miss', the response was nearly always 'Oh, sorry,' to which I replied 'Why should YOU be sorry? I'm certainly not!' Confusion all around!

"Now, when asked for my 'title', I just say, 'Sarah will do fine'. So now you know where you are with my name and signature."

I most certainly do not, Sarah F M Greenwood. I would not dream of writing to you as "Sarah". What would Mrs Mildew say about such familiarity?

If I ever have need to write to you, I shall begin the letter "Dear Madam".

If you have a gripe about anything, drop a line to me, Hector Mildew, c/o Newsroom, T&A, Hall Ings, Bradford BD1 1JR, email me or leave any messages for me with Mike Priestley on (44) 0 1274 729511.

Yours Expectantly,

Hector Mildew

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